SMF

Jim, this is food for thought. In the beginning, I think the pyramid honing sequence was a helpful tool for me to be able to get the feel and the "sense" of the mysteries of what it takes to create and maintain an edge. I'm planning to hone at least one razor this coming weekend, and maybe more, and I figure the double honing experiment can't hurt, if I do it right.

JimR wrote:Chris, I wonder if this works on the same theme as the "pyramid" I've seen around. I never got anywhere with it, but I wonder at the idea. Perhaps the polishing action from the higher grit stones, makes it more effective for the 8K when you drop back down?

I tried it, and I could tell there was an improvement. So there must be some physical explanation. I wish I knew what. The difference between a good edge and a great edge resolves at an invisable scale, so it seems like magic. Maybe that's why this is so much fun.

brothers wrote:Jim, this is food for thought. In the beginning, I think the pyramid honing sequence was a helpful tool for me to be able to get the feel and the "sense" of the mysteries of what it takes to create and maintain an edge.

Good point. That's the only other method I know of that advocates cycling back to a coarser hone. Even with that method there haven't been many good explanations of why it works.

Back in late 07 or early 08 Poona one of the guys from Ireland and a Honemiester on that side of the pond and I stumbled on a interesting phenomena at about the same time...

Making almost the same mistake as Dr.Moss only with pasted stropping, we both found that after the final stropping and test shave or perhaps two shaves if we went back and did the pasted stropping again, the resulting edge had a boost in the smoothness deptment...
However we also found that doubling up on the initial pasted stropping did not yield the same effect.. After a bit more testing he and I both thought that perhaps it was the shaving, and the slight wear from it that was causing perhaps a wear hardened edge which we were burnishing keen again with a few laps on the pasted strops...
Not sure why some of these things seem to work, but certain small things do change edges from good to WHOA !!!!!

It's taken a while to get around to doing it, but this past weekend I refreshed the edges on 7 razors, using the double method. Now it's going to take me a couple of months to cycle through the razors in the normal rotation, so I'm eager to see if it's worked. I only had one of my razors that seemed to lose it's excellent edge after too few shaves, and it was sold. The remaining razors' edges have held up very well, and the refresh routine is probably just what they needed.

8K
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Gary,

Thanks for bringing this thread back to the light.
I'd like to give this a try too.

Seth

Today I used the Clauss 6/8 for the first time since I refreshed using the double hone method. It works.

Coincidentally, yesterday was the Clauss in the rotation, and about 10 weeks since they were refreshed. I'm thinking maybe another brief refreshing might again be in order. The Clauss did pretty well on a 2 day beard, but it's usually much better than just pretty good.